Bruce Shackleford submits annual report on Fayetteville wetland-mitigation site

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Bruce Shackleford talking with Alderman Lioneld Jordan, the new mayor of Fayetteville, Arkansas, back on August 21, 2008, at the organizational meeting of the Fayetteville Natural History Association's green-infrastructure committee. Shackleford has been the environmental consultant for Fayetteville's new sewage-treatment facility and related projects for several years. His interest in prairie and wetland in Northwest Arkansas has made him a leader in the FNHA project and one of his hopes is to see even more city-owned land at the treatment facility become a part of the nature preserve. A savanna adjacent to the wetland site would be an excellent addition to the city's green infrastructure if put into a perpetual easement.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of sign at Fayetteville's Westside Wastewater Treatment Plant. Woolsey Wet Prairie was developed as mitigation for destruction of natural wetland on the site of the treatment plant.

As required by individual 404 permit 14207, the City of Fayetteville must submit an annual wetland mitigation monitoring report to the Little Rock District US Army Corps of Engineers by December 31 of each year. The purpose of the report is to provide an update on the status of wetland mitigation activities associated with the City's Wastewater System Improvements Project.

Fortunately, this year I am able to email it before 11:58 pm on December 31, as I did last year. As you will see, 2008 produced extraordinary results well beyond our wildest dreams, and we have achieved 160.13 wetland mitigation credits, when we only needed 79.2 credits. This certainly further reinforces an opportunity for "banking" the surplus 80.93 credits for future infrastructure projects, as discussed in the last section of the report, and paves the way for expanding Woolsey Wet Prairie Sanctuary.

The non-ecologist may not fully comprehend the significance of the data. Therefore, I have attached a Power Point file with photos prepared by Theo Witsell, ECO, Inc. Special Projects Scientist. As the old saying goes, "A picture speaks a thousand words".

Also check out the Woolsey Wet Prairie Sanctuary web site that Erin Billings, ECO, Inc. Environmental Scientist has developed from information I have prepared. It is still under construction and will have a lot of additional information in the future.

http://ecoarkansas.com/WoolseyMain.html

Scientist's report Woolsey Wet Prairie